


Nebula Waypoint

by shefrommo



Series: I'm no longer in Creative Writing classes, so I can post these now [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Originally written on 9/11/19, Written for Creative Writing class, Written for the scene description challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24887611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shefrommo/pseuds/shefrommo
Summary: I was challenged by my Creative Writing teacher to write a story with no characters and only scene description. This was the result: a lurid picture of a fantastical underwater train station.
Series: I'm no longer in Creative Writing classes, so I can post these now [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1800808
Kudos: 1





	Nebula Waypoint

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy!

Everybody’s soul has a shape, or to be more accurate, a structure to it. When the soul is first implanted into an unborn child’s body, the structure of the soul is something small and warm and safe, the dark of it pulsing in time to the mother’s heartbeat.

As a child grows and develops a personality, the structure expands, walls are knocked down to make entrances to the larger structure being built around it. An unborn child’s soul might be a small dark space, but after birth, holes appear in the sides and the top opens. It goes from a mock womb to a crib, now with walls like a nursery’s pretending be the empty space in between the slats of the old structure. As the soul goes from infanthood to childhood, the painted walls recede, giving way to a larger room with toys, then larger still, becoming an open-aired pavilion with grass replacing the carpet and a field surrounding the framework of the old structure.

The structure type changes, and the color scheme and decorations with it, as the soul grows and grows and grows. By the time of death, each individual soul has a completely unique structure to their soul, with each building housing a smaller framework of the previous structure. Stepping foot in a soul would be like walking into the building equivalent of a Russian nesting doll, with all the interests and phases of the owner’s life clearly evident as one wandered about.

Nebula Waypoint is a train station. The floor is spotless white marble, and the walls are the same, until about halfway up, where they become dark wood instead. Massive arches, like something out of a famous cathedral, stretch impossibly high into the air. Some sixty feet in the air, a second floor becomes visible, though it rings the edge of the walls and leaves the center of the room open clear to the ceiling. Calling it a balcony would not do it justice; walls enclose it, and it is far too wide to be called a hallway.

Here, too, arches decorate the walls, these ones instead massive windows made of stained glass. There are no mosaic pictures or stories to be seen in these windows. They are merely there to provide residents of the second floor a way to peer down at those on the floor below them. The colors of these makeshift windows are a gradient of blues to pinks and reds and back again, a full rainbow in each on.

The bottom floor is one massive open-air room. Here and there can be seen elegant white tables and chairs, set up as though to allow visitors to stop and sit for a while. Along the left side ran a hallway that leads to the railways—an endless track of marble platforms and golden rails for trains to arrive upon, should any ever come by. The right wall is solid stone, and there are no passageways, secret or otherwise, to other places. Benches and tables line it, and here and there are abandoned kiosks.

Massive double doors enclose one end, but though logic dictated that this is the exit to the outside world, this entrance remains eternally shut. The granite surface is carved and inlaid with whirls of gold, and the handles are shaped like treble clefs. At the far end of the room extends a long granite wall, which boasts no decoration whatsoever.

Occasionally, as one crosses the length of the atrium, long golden bridges cross the width of it overhead. They extend from one side of the hall to the other, their entrances hidden behind the smallest stained-glass windows; these ones about as large as a door. Upon opening the door and stepping out, sprawls a large platform, also made of sturdy swirls of colored glass. Staircases with intricate patterns in the gilded guardrails lead up to similar hidden entrances on the third and fourth floors.

There are no stairs from the ground floor to the upper floors. 

On the higher floors, the walls are all made of dark wood, and the carpet is navy blue and plush, as though it were brand new and feet had never stepped upon it. Here, nooks lined with padded benches are set into the spaces between the glass arches. Despite the ceiling of each floor being vaulted, the floor of the next one is inexplicably level.

Lining the outer wall and often directly across from the glass arches, are doors leading to a variety of different rooms. Some are music rooms and instruments are strewn about, waiting to be used. Other rooms are clearly lounges, leather couches arranged around coffee tables, and still other rooms are just bookshelves, set directly into the walls. Some rooms boast plants, other rooms paintings, a spare few both. Somewhere on the second floor is a bedroom, unused and pristine. All of these rooms have stained glass windows peering out into the world beyond—but the light streaming through is too bright and nothing can ever be gleaned from the windows.

Sweet music can be faintly heard throughout the train station, although there are no speakers. Following the sound leads to the center of the first floor, where the core of Nebula Waypoint sat.  
The floor dips subtly before reaching a series of terraced steps, all leading downwards. Here and there old structures stand out, a framework to nowhere.

Again, glittering bridges descend from the other floors, but these ones connect to the skeleton of the station’s predecessor. Dark gray pillars rise, the tops crumbled away but for where obsidian platforms are suspended in mid-air. Most have only a corner touching the pillars and are outside the worn gothic architecture.

As the bridges approach these freestanding plazas, the bright colors of the steps and the gold of the railings dull and transform. What were once gold and platinum curls become tarnished silver threaded around thorny wrought-iron bars. The stained-glass steps bleed slowly into black spotted with bits of gold, then silver, then nothing—as though the stars in the sky are slowly winking out.  
Reaching the center of the gothic section of the station is akin to stepping foot into a cemetery. The blindingly white marble is slowly replaced with the same granite as the pillars, and every step—no matter how lightly tread—echoes ominously in the otherwise still air.

Under the click of feet making contact with stone, the music swells. Descending the final steps of the coldest section reveals a change towards lighter stone. Marble makes a reappearance, and a twisting statue stands in the center of the station’s innermost plaza. Behind it winds the largest of the gilded staircases—and the only one to stretch down to the ground floor. In front of the statue is a stage, and before that is an amphitheater, the steps and makeshift seats of which descend to reach the core. On it, a lyre rests, and though it has no visible player, the strings vibrate still.

In the higher floors, peering up nets the viewer a look at the vaulted ceiling, all made of wood. From the ground floor, one can see a glass ceiling that shimmers strangely. It is always noon here, the sun shining directly overhead.

Here in the core of Nebula Waypoint, the reason behind the name becomes clear. Turning to look at the ceiling reveals that the entire train station is underwater, thus explaining the feeling of the air eddying in the halls, the pervasive warmth, and the strange teal-blue tint that can be seen during particularly strong shifts.

Stars in all colors and sizes drift throughout the station, giving the place a whimsical feel. It almost seems at times that stars are falling around the visitor, comets streaking by, only to veer out of the way of reaching hands and skyrocketing back up to drift near the bridges.

The gothic section alone feels like cold, dead water, rendering each motion slow and exhaustive. It has the fewest stars floating about inside its limits—but each of these ones gives off a subtle hint of malice, some lizard instinct warning that death and misery can catch the visitor should they be so foolish as to touch these stars.

Between the light passing though the stained-glass windows and the light from the stars, the water tints in such a way that it almost seems to be a nebula, a stardust cloud winding playfully around the visitor.

The average visitor never catches these stars, nor any of the others. These stars are solely the purview of the owner, and each represents something vastly significant. Perhaps they are the bonds that bind friends to friends and family to family, perhaps they are happy memories, perhaps they are ideas, left adrift to spin and collect momentum and inspiration as the author languishes over an empty document. Who can say?


End file.
